


"What Immortal Hand Or Eye?"

by Hannibalsimago, OfDvorakAndDastardlySchemes



Category: Casino Royale (2006), Casino Royale - Fandom, Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom
Genre: #RoyaleInstinctWeekend, Aftermath of Violence, Alpha Kratt, Alpha Le Chiffre, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bullying, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Intersex Omega Adam Towers, M/M, Psychological Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 01:06:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13423467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannibalsimago/pseuds/Hannibalsimago, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfDvorakAndDastardlySchemes/pseuds/OfDvorakAndDastardlySchemes
Summary: Kratt knew everyone-- well, everyone that mattered.  And Adam Towers shouldn’t have mattered, much.A timestamp for "A Pearl of Great Price."This is part of the #RoyaleInstinctWeekend.





	"What Immortal Hand Or Eye?"

Kratt knew everyone-- well, everyone that _mattered._ And Adam Towers shouldn’t have mattered, _much._ He should have been a minor pawn, a person of no real influence-- a dalliance of a few hours, maybe a day or two at the most.

 

 

He remembered the first time he saw the man down at the lobby of the Hotel Royale-les-Eaux, redolent with chlorine, insouciant.  Perhaps that’s all it took to draw Le Chiffre in: the whole “I don’t give two-fucks” attitude mixed with steely resolve, a spark of intelligence and well, face it, the guy was eye candy.  Kratt would never begrudge Le Chiffre anything, deny him anything unless it meant his safety.  Anything else was none of his business unless Le Chiffre decided otherwise.

 

Towers glanced away and his eye caught Kratt’s.  He smirked that infuriating patronizing smile, as if he could see into Kratt’s soul.  Kratt was fine with that.  He was never going to chisel any deeper.  Kratt was fine with it being all about surface polish.

 

And that’s the way it would have gone on, until that nightmarish day when Kratt seriously came close to carrying out what he saw as his duty, and committing oibara.  The decision rested and resolved on a knife edge.  Kratt smiled at the irony of that.

 

None of this was uttered.  It didn’t need to be.  It was written in their blood, in their bones, in their sinews, in their nerves.  Anything else was superfluous.

 

Kratt had all but made his decision right up until the moment when he pulled the warehouse door open and found Le Chiffre inside.

 

Later that evening, Kratt couldn’t shake echoes from the past.  He remembered starving on the streets of Tirana, scarcely better than the feral dogs, except the dogs roamed in packs and he had no one.  His parents had died in some Communist uprising or something or other.  There was either no family or they weren’t interested in taking in another mouth to feed. It didn’t matter either way.  He was alone.

 

Kratt took to the streets, sleeping rough, sometimes showing up at school, always the outsider no matter the environment.  The tender innocent quickly transformed under the tutelage of the strong-arms in and out of school.  Lack of nutrition translated into lack of height for Kratt.  Overconfident bullies learned not to underestimate the runt who bided his time and laid vicious traps to incapacitate.  

 

Kratt had ran away down the school corridors with a gleeful cry after an especially fiendish trip obstacle on the narrow back stairs had broken one of the ankles on his most unrelenting tormentor.  It didn’t last long.  With inhuman howls, the rest of the swarm gave chase and cornered him in a tiny, forgotten bathroom.  He almost drowned. Afterward, he wished he had, while the pack whooped and hollered down the hallways, the sound echoing like the fey’s Wild Hunt come to life.

 

When Kratt came to, his head was being cradled carefully and he looked up into the face of a dark angel, cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, dark hair and flashing eyes. That was the start of it.

 

His memories were of refusing to take charity, figuratively biting the proffered hand, and the relationship began exactly as that of a boy attempting to tame a wild beast.

 

Later on, it was Kratt’s idea to branch out into running guns, and Le Chiffre backed him up even when Kratt knew he had reservations about some of the deals or the people involved.

 

It was in Africa on a deal gone bad.  Kratt was going to be made an example of.  He was subdued, restrained, beaten.  His head was pinned in place by huge hands-- big as platters, it seemed to him at the time-- and watched a soldier sharpen a machete on a grinding wheel.

 

Out of nowhere, Le Chiffre stepped into the scene.  Kratt looked at the familiar face, watched Le Chiffre run the numbers, process the odds as the wheel turned and the noise drilled into Kratt’s head.  He silently said goodbye to his childhood friend.  Preparations over, the soldier came over to deliver the coup de grace.  Le Chiffre stepped forward, put a hand out on the man’s shoulder and bent low to his right ear and quietly said some words.  What they were, Kratt never asked nor found out.

 

Commands were barked out in a native dialect and Le Chiffre was led into a patch of sunlight.  He stood and looked at Kratt as they took his eye.  Kratt howled internally as it happened.  They released Kratt immediately, and he caught Le Chiffre as he fell.  They both were allowed to walk out of the jungle.  Le Chiffre had nearly bitten his lip in two in an attempt not to scream as they walked through muck and ruts back to town.  

 

While Le Chiffre healed up in the hospital, Kratt tracked down three men: the one who did the deed, the one who gave the order, and the turncoat.  He performed the Viking blood eagle on all of them.  After, he went back to Le Chiffre ready to sacrifice himself, feeling all-devouring shame at his friend’s ruined face and knowing it was his deal that was the cause of it.    

 

In the hospital room, his hands, still with traces of blood under the nails, twitched and grasped at imaginary foes, as if he was acting out the deaths for Le Chiffre to witness, though he was barely able to look at Le Chiffre’s ruined beauty (or so it had seemed to Kratt at the time.  He understood now that that response was his shame.  In reality, it could hardly do anything but _heighten_ the allure of the man.).

 

“Kratt,” more a breath than a whisper but it cut through him all the same.

 

Kratt turned and looked at his daimyō for the first time since it happened.  Kratt held up three fingers.  Le Chiffre barely smiled.

 

“I cut their tongues out first to silence them.  But they each suffered a hundredfold for what was done to you.  I made it as agonizing as I could.”

 

Le Chiffre’s eye blazed and he gave Kratt a _predatory_ smile as one would receive from an alpha wolf chasing down a deer in the depths of winter.

 

^^^^^^^^^^

 

Castigating himself for not paying attention to his surroundings, Kratt heard a particularly rough, impassioned cry from Towers, “ _Alpha!_ ”  With a fierce feeling of pride, he thought, _You have no idea._

 

**Author's Note:**

> OfDvorakAndDastardlySchemes and I have been busy writing the larger work but have found that Real Life has been throwing us a few curve balls. 
> 
> Rest assured the work continues...


End file.
